Orkid
New Member
"Faster and faster , until the love of speed takes away the fear of death!" - HST R.I.P
Posts: 73
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Post by Orkid on May 2, 2005 17:58:13 GMT -5
i thought i saw rules for it once before here but ive looked around and cant seem to find it again... i have proceeded to do a 50/50 split with my character anyway , but i still wonder if i had to. Here we go, to be an arcane archer how many levels of bard wizard or sorcerer are you required to have for FRC rules in order to take the AA PrC at level 10?? coz what i thought i saw was 1 but i cant seem to find the post again so i was thinking it may have been another PWs forums...
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Post by Quadhund/Greenhouse on May 2, 2005 18:08:00 GMT -5
As far as I know it is only 1 wiz/sorc, and you cant take the prestige class until level 10 (like all the other ones). I dont know why you would have to take more. To me, if you were forced to take more, why can the weapon masters stop taking levels of weapon master once they have gotten their extra 2 to their threat range (not saying anyone is doing this, but most people think there is no advantage of taking weapon master beyond 7 levels). This is also like the RDD and the Pale Master and Shadowdancer, where they run out of usefulness after level 10 ... But I digress...
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Post by Grozer on May 2, 2005 18:26:06 GMT -5
To me, if you were forced to take more, why can the weapon masters stop taking levels of weapon master once they have gotten their extra 2 to their threat range (not saying anyone is doing this, but most people think there is no advantage of taking weapon master beyond 7 levels). This is also like the RDD and the Pale Master and Shadowdancer, where they run out of usefulness after level 10 ... But I digress... *appears shocked* Hey that's something a power gamer would say!!
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Misha Aogail
Old School
Player of: Torian Burrfoot, Misha, Whisper, and Oriana Gant
Posts: 324
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Post by Misha Aogail on May 2, 2005 18:36:43 GMT -5
We Shadowdancers don't run out of usefulness at level 10! That's when the fun is just beginning! ;D Actually, for some stuff, that's when it starts getting useful...
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Post by MithrilBlade on Jun 2, 2005 7:11:53 GMT -5
Arcane Archer requires ability to cast arcane spells, basically 1 level of sorcerer/bard/wizard is enough, but the thing is that for example taking 1 level of wizard makes absolutely no sense.
Taking 1 wizard level all suddenly is IMO crappiest RP one can really do because unlike for example sorcerer (if you notice your talents suddenly), one does not become wizard OVERNIGHT!
Wizard "training" is studying million tomes, learning from a master and training with even the most minor cantrips day after day for weeks or months until you can finally cast light properly.
Anyway, I'd strongly suggest you'd take at least several levels of the spellcasting class before you take AA just to avoid the powergaming aspect, I don't think personally that you could shoot fire or even death arrow with ability to cast lv 1 spells.
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Post by Quadhund/Greenhouse on Jun 2, 2005 10:33:43 GMT -5
I disagree, as I played with a character named Seril and he pulled off the 1 level wizard very well. He RPed it as studying his friend (another arcane archer). This AA taught him enough "tricks" to allow him to be just as potent.
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Post by Booze Hound on Jun 2, 2005 11:02:26 GMT -5
it would be just like the UMD skill and 'faking it' to cast juts a couple spells on your arrows and such by watching someone else do it, a good way to RP the one level of wizard or whatever would be to maybe only use the AA magic skills, since those are the ones you learned to become one, and leave the other spells to the real mages
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Post by MithrilBlade on Jun 2, 2005 13:06:49 GMT -5
Okay Quahund tell me why did you pick 1 level of wizard.
I can understand you take wizard if some powerful mage (lv 15+) first teaches you the basics and gives you extra fast education how can you learn to cast spells.
Still I do NOT understand any roleplaying reason why your character would learn only the very basics, then some ancient elven archer would contact him and ask if you have arcane lore and would instantly start teaching you to become the most powerful magical archer there is in the lands.
Oh I forgot, the reason why you have only 1 level of wizard is because you want maximized attack bonus! Ah that makes much more sense now...wait that's powergaming and optimizing your "build" so that you'd gain best possible class combination available for arcane archer.
Quadhund you have rambled a lot here about people who powergame and what should be done to them, but THAT IS IMO pretty equal to some other powergaming form like minimaxing stats (make fighter with 8 wis,int,cha and give him great str, dex and con) or similar.
Actually in 90% of servers I have played in that is just simply forbidden, you may not make character with just one level of a class, multiclassing is not about learning the very basics, if you become for example monk you should take at least 3 or 4 levels of it because it requires so deep devotion to learn it.
IMO some classes should be made simply inaccessible after lv 1 because it makes no sense when people for example learn the path of a monk with their clerics/druids to get the uber AC from their wisdom. That is powergaming no matter how you try to justify it with your RP.
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Post by soulfien on Jun 2, 2005 13:14:50 GMT -5
Well, if your goal is to become an AA, I can understand the 1 lvl of wizard.
Think of it like this... Elves have a natural affinity for magic and wizardry. It's in their blood and their culture. It's the same with archery.
An elf goes in search of an Arcane Archer master to train them. The Master teaches them the basics of arcane mastery and then teaches them to shape it into their archery skills. As long as the wizardry is part of their training then I see no problem. This takes them 2 levels to learn Arcane Archery. That's a lot of training.
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Orkid
New Member
"Faster and faster , until the love of speed takes away the fear of death!" - HST R.I.P
Posts: 73
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Post by Orkid on Jun 2, 2005 13:24:34 GMT -5
like so many topics this one has appeared to veer off course slightly, i didnt want to start a discussion about powergaming, but there's no reason to start another thread as my original question has been answered , and as far as it goes for taking one class , this is the one instance where i could see it plausible , because to be an arcane archer , all you need to know is the basics so that you may enhance your 'Archery' with 'Arcane' energies... the way i see it , you are still taking a spell caster class (you get the spellcraft skill allowing for epic spells later on...) , but instead of gaining spells , you use that arcane focus entirely towards your archery, and while it may not make as much sense to do it with wiz , as say a sorc or bard , whose abilities can be latent within them, it would just take a little bit more RP and time to play it off. I know none of this is addressed at me , but it borderlines me and my concerns so i'm gonna weigh in... It is great fun to be that 12 lv Wiz/ 8 lv AA at the end of the line but let's face it, that's not where the AA's abililties are best used. The AA PRC in itself should almost be considered PGing , because by the time im level 15 , im gonna have a higher AB than many fighters at 20th (you can scale that back down the line as far as you want, at 10 , no one i run with regularly has an AB equal to mine even though they may be handful of levels higher). And its not because i have a PGing build (Rogue 5/Bard 5/ (eventually) AA 10) that's just the nature of the PRC, my character is what i would like to think in 2nd Ed. Ninja's Handbook would be referred to as an Infiltrator , and before you accuse me of Maxing AB , think this , at least im not Fighter9/bard1/AA10 , that's a PG build. What player/ninja wouldnt wanna have the RP device of having an arrow capable of killing with a single shot ;D I'm not really sure what the above argument is even tryin to accomplish but there' s my 2 cents
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Post by Quadhund/Greenhouse on Jun 2, 2005 13:32:53 GMT -5
frc.proboards37.com/index.cgi?board=adventurer&action=display&thread=1099878492www.freewebs.com/seril/index.htmBTW this was not my character. I said I played with a character. The players name was Silencer Nate. Perhaps you should be calling him a power gamer, not me! And I think it is perfectly legit to play a character for a prestige class as long as you RP that prestige class. My beef with prestige classes is that they are EASY to powergame with (seven levels of WM or 10 levels of RDD). But if Seril was going to end up 31 AA/ 8 fight/ and 1 wiz, I wouldnt consider powergaming because he WANTED TO BE AN AA!!!! If you read all his posts and his webiste, you will surely see that he was not a powergamer. He was very much into RPing and I am sad to see him gone. I do not think it is powergaming if you take just enough feats/skill points/levels to get that prestige class. As long as you play that prestige class through. Is it powergaming if a blackguard never increases their Hide skill once they are able to take the class? Or if an RDD doesnt increase their Lore skill? Or a Shadowdancer increase their tumble? Or a Harperscout their discipline, persuade, lore and what not? I dont think it is powergaming to meet those prereqs as long as you play your character for that class. It IS powergaming if you fulfill those requirements, just so you can abuse the class.
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Post by hoffman900 on Jun 6, 2005 21:40:35 GMT -5
Just think about this: 10 level of whatever class, + 10 levels of any prestige. You are already at the 20th level. Y'know, in PnP you usually retire you char at level 20 because it's, well, pretty powerfull. Can you really push it far over that without farming? The RP related XP here is not very high, even for the best roleplayers. Think about it. 10 level in a prestige class is enough, IMHO The problem is more with taking only 1 or 2 levels.
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C'tair
New Member
Today is the first day of the Rest of Your life... Not Much to look forward to, is it?
Posts: 85
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Post by C'tair on Jun 6, 2005 23:46:43 GMT -5
ehm...orkid, i´m not realy sure why your AB should be any higher then the normal gain, which is the same for AA like for every other fighter class. could you please clarify this point? if you refer to the imbued arrows, i believe they do not alter your AB at all.
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Post by Quadhund/Greenhouse on Jun 7, 2005 2:04:00 GMT -5
I tend to agree with the idea that imbue arrows does NOT increase your AB. Enhancement bonuses on projectiles (bolts, bullets, and arrows) just increases damage not attack bonus. Your weapon (bow, sling, or crossbow) must be enchanted to increase your AB. However, I could be mistaken as I do not know much about the AA class.
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Post by Keetena on Jun 7, 2005 5:58:30 GMT -5
Let's talk about powergamer AA I do think that the fact of cast 1st lvl arcane spells means that the guy who is an AA can be an aprendice who chosed be specialisty in one area: 'imbue arrows' so I see no reason to call the player powergamer about this, let me see, I'm a ranger skilled with bow and I start studing arcane ways to imbue my arrows, so I learn the basic to specialize only in arrows and bow effects... really I think that nothing is wrong about this... but since a combination of fighter 9/bard1/AA was mentioned, just to remenber, the combination should be fighter 8/bard2/AA or Fighter 7/bard 2/ AA, a bard lvl 1 cast only cantrips our first lvl spells are avaiable only in 2nd character lvl ;p - the same idea could be considered to someone who discover arcane powers (sorcerers and bards).
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Post by MithrilBlade on Jun 7, 2005 7:20:35 GMT -5
I have seen people accusing like every another thing powergaming, but building best class combination is one of the worst types.
Like I have said before in most servers your classes have to be divided to at least 25%/25%/50% if you pick three of them, 25%/75% if you pick two. Taking just one level of wizard is for me pretty much same as if you'd take one level of shadowdancer and then advance on as assassin, it is powergaming if you want a class but are too lazy to "waste more than one level" to achieve it. I know there can be roleplaying reasons for person to only get 1 level of wizard but hey, there can be RP reasons why your character understood that the path of shadowdancer wasn't what he seeks and he decides to learn how can he be deadly hired killer. You can find RP reasons for nearly any class combo but it doesn't change the fact it's one sort of powergaming, not perhaps the worst but powergaming anyway.
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Post by Keetena on Jun 7, 2005 8:43:50 GMT -5
You just forgot one detail, any DM should accept only one prestige class per character, and this is in the server rules, so in my opinion there is no problem since you follow this reason... the game engine permits you to have only three classes... I myself like pure classes (so I play here with a pure bard until now) but I think all players have liberty to decide what pleases they more ... unless the DMs think that the player is overpassing RP limits to be just a sheet character... I still thinks that someone who devotes just to magical effects with arrows don't need be even recognized as a wizard, even with one lvl in the class... just my opinion again.
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Aeron
New Member
Posts: 5
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Post by Aeron on Jun 7, 2005 10:21:20 GMT -5
I don't know what the big fuss is about arcane archers. How can it be powergaming when they are doing it to meet the class requirements of being an AA. So does that mean if I'm not a rogue class and I cross class skills into hide to be an Assassin im powergaming because I'm doing it to meet a requirement, no?
So going by this logic, most AA's should be at least a mildly accomplished mage or something needing 5 levels or so, but according to the NWN engine and I think the manuals the prerequisites are only 1st level arcane spell casting. Does that mean we should force all PrC takers to have more than the prerequisites as otherwise it maybe considered PGing?
I think the DM's have been pretty generous with letting us use our own judgement when deciding what things are powergaming or not, its usually quite obvious and most times if it is properly roleplayed it's no problem with most people I think IMHO. Let's not prove the DM's wrong by asking them to make a rule for every single thing.
One of the great things of FRC is the freedom to build and play unique characters with equally interesting characters, quirks and backgrounds. Would it be better to have only 4 base classes fighter,cleric,wizard and theif and have characters RP other class abilities? Again as interesting that maybe I think it would take away some of the depth and individuality that some of our characters have. Let's just stick to playing and have fun eh?
Play and let play.
K
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Post by MithrilBlade on Jun 7, 2005 11:07:14 GMT -5
Aeron 99% of rogues take hide skill anyway because they're often based to that skill and like to sneak around. As for 1 wizard level it's not something like majority of the fighter/ranger archers pick, it's extremely rare that someone (even possibly with 10 int or 10 cha) takes spellcasting class at all because it requires so great devotion, while you can just go around and smite things with your greatsword...So why to learn how to cast magic missile?
The thing is just that arcane archers are actually EXTREMELY rare in Faerun, they're definetly not giving their secrets of magical archer to just someone who they will have to teach also the very basics of spellcasting and then arcane archer training (or who "accidentially" happened to learn how to cast magic missile, then before his training took him further in the path of mage he happened to meet this arcane archer, who was willing to teach him everything).
Seriously, just take several levels of the wizard and it makes much more sense, it requires BOTH magic AND archery talents to learn the secrets, so if you're just ordinary archer, who happened to learn the basics I don't think you should even take your AA classes above lv 3 or so because you don't have the neccesary magic to use abilities like arrow of death or fireball arrow (for example here, fireball is lv 3 spell that requires lv 5 spellcaster to use it, how could your lv 1 mage suddenly imbue a fireball in the arrow?). If you are not interested of the magic, but just the archery itself then you should start taking your fighter levels after lv 3 AA or so. Arcane archer itself is one of the ONLY mage/fighter prestige classes that can be taken with only one mage level, most require far more spell power than actually the fighter talents, which goes secondary for the most classes.
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Post by Quadhund/Greenhouse on Jun 7, 2005 11:10:24 GMT -5
I would agree with you Mithrilblade IF there werent any prereqs for the class. You cant become an AA if you dont have these qualities. Are all AA's full blown wizzies? Prolly not since they have to spend some of their time practicing with their bow. Just like the RDD, I dont think that they have to take more than 1 level of bard or sorceror to meet the class specs, but I think you should play as that particular class. So for the RDD, I wouldnt mind seeing 9 fighter/1 bard/30 RDD. Now sure, if the person took 10 AA (just to get all the cool arrow abilities) and then 1 wizzie and 29 fighter, i would start to wonder if they werent powergaming.
I guess Mithril, we'll have to agree to disagree on what our definition of powergaming is ...
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Aeron
New Member
Posts: 5
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Post by Aeron on Jun 7, 2005 11:19:51 GMT -5
"So does that mean if I'm not a rogue class and I cross class skills into hide to be an Assassin im powergaming because I'm doing it to meet a requirement, no? " I'm pretty sure most rogues would use hide mithralblade I was referring to the non- rogues As for accidently learning to cast magic missile as you put it. Could it not be construed that they are learning to imbue their arrows. How many AA's acutally cast spells? Also in terms of the fireball being a level 3 spell, it is an ARCANE archer. Is it too presumptious to expect that the AA trains not only in the mundane archery part but the magical part too? I dunno. The topic of RP vs PG is probably one of the most tragic beaten dead horses in PW forums. Really im sure most of us could rant on for the point we agree with on any argument. As for me its pretty simple, if it doesnt bother my play, RP or upset other players in general and its well RP'd itself its fine with me. Play and let play. K
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Post by Forum Administrator on Jun 13, 2005 13:18:59 GMT -5
*Let's his demonic powergamer take over for a wee bit...* Ahem! To me, if you were forced to take more, why can the weapon masters stop taking levels of weapon master once they have gotten their extra 2 to their threat range (not saying anyone is doing this, but most people think there is no advantage of taking weapon master beyond 7 levels). I assure you there's a great reason for continuing with the Weapon Master PrC even after level 7, mate. This is also like the RDD and the Pale Master and Shadowdancer, where they run out of usefulness after level 10 ... But I digress... *Repeats himself* I assure you there's a great reason for continuing with the Pale Master PrC even after level 10, mate. Cheers, DM Bassa
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Post by Forum Administrator on Jun 13, 2005 13:32:16 GMT -5
As previously stated, we've decided to go about with some leniency when it comes to our players freedom to combine whatever classes they so wish, however, we do have a few ends one must meet before we can approve any single character setup.
1. Taking a single level of any single class in order to meet the requirements for getting a Prestige Class is OK!
2. Before you take your first level in ANY Prestige Class, your character must be of at least 9th level (singleclasses or multiclasses combined), hence they will be 10th level when they've gotten their first Prestige Class level.
3. Any single character may have only 1 Prestige Class associated with his/her character.
Prestige Classes are just that... Prestige Classes. And they should be treated as such. When taking a Prestige Class it means that you devote yourself into a certain direction in your characters career. It does NOT mean that "Damn d00d, I get some sweet skillz if I take this Prc!!".
Prestige Classes are not flooding the realm of Faerûn, mostly because they demand devotion beyond belief and will take a character towards a very streamlined direction.
As a continuation of my first note, we DO have alot of leniency. Please don't take it for granted.
Cheers, DM Bassa
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